


when you're gone (we remain)

by TsukiDragneel



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Brothers Germany & Prussia (Hetalia), Dead Prussia (Hetalia), Gen, Historical Accuracy, Historical References, Human & Country Names Used (Hetalia), Immortals, Prussian Dissolution Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 14:50:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17920904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TsukiDragneel/pseuds/TsukiDragneel
Summary: It's been 72 years since that day, and everyone remembers.





	when you're gone (we remain)

_February 25, 1947_

_72 years you've been gone, and 72 years I've been alone._

The blond man places a bouquet of blue cornflowers in front of the grey stone, emblazoned only with a date. It's not fair. There should be  _more_ , something more to the testament of a life than just a grey rock.

The wind tugs at his close-cropped blond hair, and tears well up in eyes blue as the sky. Even after visiting the same site year after year, he still isn't used to it. 

In a way, he prefers it like that. If he wasn't hurt by the simple stone sitting below the mighty oak tree, roots reaching out to cradle the body of a man  _too good_ for this world, then he might as well not feel.

His hands loosen around the stems of the cornflowers, tears rolling freely down his cheeks. It's been 72 years, 72  _long long_ years since he saw the glint of those red eyes, the bright smile and windswept hair of his brother. 

That look of betrayal, but at the same time, acceptance, as the last of the papers were signed into being.

It  _stings_ , to know that he couldn't do a damn thing. How someone so powerful was relegated to... this. A fading memory in the minds of those who knew him, a long-since-gone relic of the past.

It's not fair.

But neither is life.

Ludwig Beilschmidt places the flowers in front of his brother's grave, in front of the stone sitting beneath the branches of the mighty oak tree. In front of his brother's final resting place, in front of the last memory of the great nation of Prussia, he sobs.

And it's not just thanks to the fact that Prussia's long-since been relegated to the history books, eclipsed by everything from boxing to music. It's not just thanks to the fact that Prussia's been nearly wiped from existence by the rest of the world, oh no. 

He cries for his brother. The man with white hair who raised him, the man who proclaimed his awesomeness at each turn, and kept diaries of each day of his life. 

_Ich Liebe Dich, brother._

* * *

Across the ocean, a man with blond hair and azure eyes takes a moment to stare into the sky and remember the man who helped him win his independence.

A brown-haired man pauses in his piano playing, the memory of white hair and red eyes washing over him like a tidal wave.

A green-eyed man leans into the side of his brown-haired friend, remembering their common enemy with fondness.

A woman with streaming caramel hair cries into her pillow, mourning the loss of a friend. 

A blond man and his chocolate-haired friend pause in their drinking to raise a glass to a dedicated friend, pounding it back with gusto. 

A grass-eyed man with eyebrows thicker than caterpillars sips on a mug of tea, memories of a war long-since passed circling in his head. 

A man with a tan scarf trailing in the snow pauses for a moment, staring out at the drifts the same white as his hair. 

A pair of twins, relaxing in the humid Mediterranean air, stop and stare out at the sea, thoughts of another pair of siblings whirring through their minds.

A man, invisible to the world, gently strokes his polar bear and tries not to cry at the thought of the only person who ever saw him. 

The nation of Prussia may be gone, but the memories of Gilbert Beilschmidt live on. 


End file.
